Manwiththeharmonica,

Thank you for sending your profile to Stratus Prep. I am pleased to review it and provide my feedback. At Stratus Prep, we have successfully worked with countless male Indian applicants and engineers from the EPC space looking to move into Real Estate and Infrastructure Finance.

Your excellent GMAT score and work/team leadership experience will make you very competitive at the schools you listed. Multiple promotions and 3-5 direct reports make you desirable to business schools, and it sounds like you will have very strong recommenders since your manager is suggesting you receive another promotion (as long as your manager is ok with your leaving the firm to pursue your full-time MBA).

Definitely don’t disregard the website you have created just because it hasn’t taken off yet. Entrepreneurial ventures like these take time, and the fact that it is still running and is successful enough to employ another person represent a remarkable achievement for a first-time entrepreneur! MBA AdComs value the initiative and dedication it takes to start something innovative, and applicants with backgrounds in entrepreneurship have become highly sought out in recent years. You might also use this experience to speak about something that you could have done even better as that is often an MBA admissions question. If you were to work with Stratus Prep, I certainly advise you to strategically include this aspect of your experience in your essays and application to differentiate you from other EPC applicants.

One potential weakness in your profile is that you have been out of college for at least 7 years based on your employment history, and you already have a Master’s degree. While the Master’s degree itself is not a necessarily a drawback, you will need to explain why you also need an MBA to achieve your career goals (or why your first Master’s was not sufficient). It is important that you not make yourself look so experienced in your application that the schools worry you are too senior for a full-time MBA and try to push you into an Executive MBA program. My team and I would be happy to coach you on how to find this perfect medium.

My team and I at Stratus Prep have helped hundreds of applicants who already have advanced degrees and/or who have been out of college for 5+ years get into Booth, LBS, ISB, and INSEAD. I would also consider applying to NYU, Columbia, and MIT Sloan. I am confident that with our introspection exercises, application strategy development, essay outlining, and assistance choosing/coaching recommenders, you will have an extremely competitive application for your top-choice schools.

Unlike at every other firm, at Stratus Prep you will have a primary counselor (all of whom attended a top 5 business school and have 2+ years of admissions counseling experience) who you can go to for all of your questions, but I will personally serve as an objective evaluator, offering feedback throughout the process. If you would like to find out more information about how Stratus Prep can guide you through the application process, feel free to send me an email at shawn.oconnor@stratusprep.com. Also, just as an FYI, we are having a 10% off special that expires on February 26th.
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Shawn O'Connor
Founder/CEO, Stratus Prep
shawn.oconnor@stratusprep.com
212-307-1788
http://www.stratusprep.com